The present invention relates to a new variety of Mandevilla plant, called `Rita Marie Green`. This plant is believed to be different from all previous known Mandevilla plants in that it possesses double flowers. `Rita Marie Green` is useful as a woody vine that produces decorative double blossoms. The double flowers of `Rita Marie Green` enhance its appearance and make it especially marketable, and therefore, useful. The botanical name for my new variety is Mandevilla.times.amabilis `Rita Marie Green`.
The progenitor plant of `Rita Marie Green` was a Mandevilla of the variety `Alice du Pont`, which does not have double flowers. `Alice DuPont` is botanically known as Mandevilla.times.amabilis (an interspecific hybrid of M. splendens and an undefined parent), and therefore has the complete botanical name Mandevilla.times.amabilis `Alice DuPont`.
The parent plant of the new variety was found in a group of `Alice du Pont` Mandevilla plants growing in a cultivated area (in a greenhouse) in Haines City, Fla. Thus, the new plant is understood to be a mutation of the `Alice du Pont` variety of Mandevilla plant. The new plant has been propagated from cuttings taken from the parent plant and from progeny produced from such cuttings. My new variety, `Rita Marie Green,` has been grown from at least five successive generations of cuttings and each generation has only generated plants that express double flowers (i.e. a first cutting has been taken grown to maturity and then used to provide the cutting for the next generation). In addition, culturing of the `Rita Marie Green` variety auxillary bud tissue has also only produced plants with double flowers. Hence, the double flower phenotype is stable.
`Rita Marie Green` has not been observed under all possible environmental conditions and its phenotype may vary significantly with variations in environment such as temperature, light intensity, and day length, without any variation in genotype. However, the following unique charactristic has been repeatedly observed in asexually propagated progeny of `Rita Marie Green` and distinguish it from all other Mandevilla varieties: double flowers which are red to red-purple and comprise an outer corolla of five petals or limbs and an inner flower comprising a ring of petaloids. This double flower structure is unique among Mandevilla plants and is a characteristic of all `Rita Marie Green` variety plants, including the variety `Monite`. The inner petaloids comprise five inner petaloids in a cluster within the outer corolla limbs. In some cases, the inner petaloids assume an upright or trumpet-like configuration generally prohibiting a view of the inner throat and forming a "flower-within-flower" cluster; in other cases, the inner petaloids are more laid back against the outer petals, exposing the throat of the plant; in relatively rare instances, the inner petaloids assume a folded, almost rose-like appearance or, alternatively, a windmill-like appearance. However, in all cases, the flower within a flower characteristic of this new Mandevilla variety is outstanding.
This double flowering characteristic is established and transmitted through succeeding asexual propagations. There are several double flower forms that have been exhibited by this plant, as described below.